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As a parent I am restless. I keep auditing myself and my skills of parenting. And like all auditors , I keep finding glaring errors. Was I too soft in allowing him to play computer games for 60 minutes this week ? Was I too harsh when i refused to allow him to read the third story book this week ?? Was I barbaric when I forced down the badam milk down his gullet ? Was I hitlersque in not allowing noodles more than once a month ?

Was I ?

Wasn’t I ?

What would his reaction be ? What would I have done in his place ?

Whay? Why?

Could I have done this /that in a better way? WAS there a better way?

I was an auditor as a child too. I would point out how better I could have been brought up,That is in MY view ( highly prejudiced ;)My mother would console me by telling that iItoo qwould get my chance and I could do it the right way then.Now I have my son saying that i am not an ideal mom !

His ideas of parenting are quite well thought out-even as a 12 year old.

I am not worried. I am more worried about his ideas of ‘sonning’

More on that soon .

Most often my auditing is done at night. If I am tired sleep takes over otherwise auditing takes over the sleep.Many a times my son would have found it amusing that I would be extra careful on some mornings in handing out decisions /orders.He would have expected the usual military general barking orders….and he is stunned to see a liberal, ‘cool’ mom accepting his verdicts without a syllable of dissent. Mornings such as these must be a kid’s dream beginning of a new day.

9 Responses to “An auditor comes calling at night.”

I think the reason could be, more or less, the parenting that we try to give in 2008, has its roots in 20 or 25 years old parenting which we got, and its quite outdated, from our point of view, and from Kids’ point of view.

Values may be outdated but the purpose behind remains the same–bringing up good humans.
The purpose is hidden when we see it from the kids’ angle.
But as parents we can’t ignore weeding out unwanted attitude, unhealthy habits and alien cultural mushrooms which may sprout in our kids due to external influences.
A farmer can’t sit idle when weeds and pests attack his field. can he ?
“Kids have more intelligence than plants “-may be a kid’s argument.
But IMO a parent has the onus of thinking ahead and farming apropriately.

I agree with most of your points, but sometimes we must start thinking from a ‘todays’ child perspective also. My 5 yr old is more challenging to my father who has not difficulty dealing 3 daughters of his own and thousands of his students 😀 We need to do some refresher courses I believe…:)) LOL . As a parent of a teenager of this era u must be facing lots of challenges, so my best wishes with you for this year. Wish you a very happy new year to you and your family. 🙂

IQ of the today’s child is very much higher. the very fact that u retrospect what all happened during the day and repent/ want to correct next time makes you a very committed person for human values. I feel u r following the rules of quality guru philips crossbe u want to do it right first time. it is wonderful and accepting once mistakes and try to learn from the mistakes itself is great thing keep going and u r in the right D
I wish each and every school in India will have committed teachers like u let my dream come true and we all celebrate. let us move towards vision of Dr,APJK’s 2020

There is definitely a lot of difference in thinking of today’s generation child compared to previous generation. Parents should also consider this and try to balance between liberal n strictness. Parenting is a very delicate task that need to be handled carefully.. I agree.

@ Lakshmi:Yes,it is true. When we find it difficult to bring up our kids as our values seem out of place,the case with the grandparents is even tougher.Their value s and priorities are that much farther from the kids of this era.
@ Praneshacharji : I ask my kids to review me each year…It IS fun and very scary as to how much of the finer things they observe AND disapprove…
@ Mouna :I am very democratic at heart. V has a lot of say in his upbringing… He corrects my statements and miodifies my language to a more politically correct one if I am not careful !
@ Harsha : I AM on that tight rope…trying to walk as gracefully as I can…